The present invention broadly relates to the furniture art and, more specifically, concerns a new and improved construction of supporting or support plate arrangement for adjusting the inclination of at least one part of the repose or lying surface of a piece of furniture upon which a person can recline or lie.
In the description to follow such piece of furniture will be sometimes conveniently referred to simply as reclining furniture.
As a general rule such support or supporting plate arrangements for adjusting the head end of reclining furniture are hingedly connected both at the frame as well as also at the reclining surface part or portion which is to be adjusted, typically a lower mattress. They are actuated in that the adjustable part is raised or lowered.
In principle such prior art supporting plate arrangement or support plate also can be used for the elevational adjustment of the foot end of the furniture, i.e., as a so-called foot elevational support. However, this results in the limitation that the pivotable lower mattress portion cannot be further raised than permitted by the maximum spreading apart of the support plate owing to the pivotal connection of the lower mattress portion with the support plate. Due to the open gap or space which is thus formed between the frame and the lower mattress access to a storage cabinet or compartment for the storage of the bed linen, sheets, blankets or the like-- hereinafter conveniently referred to as the bedding--arranged below the lower mattress is hardly possible or at best with extreme difficulty. To overcome this drawback it has already been proposed that the support plate not be connected with the pivotal lower mattress portion so that it can be upwardly pivoted. However, this in turn is associated with the disadvantage that the employed support plate no longer can be actuated by raising and lowering the adjustable lower mattress portion. This becomes even more problematic due to the fact that, as a general rule, there are required two support plates in order to obtain the requisite stability of the support. Hence, it is necessary to individually regulate both of the support plates when the lower mattress portion is raised. Moreover, the conventionally employed support plates which are intended for use with the head portions are not designed in such a manner that there can be realized satisfactory stability with a free articulated lever arm, so that additional means are required in order to guide the free lever ends such as to prevent lateral outward deflection. This again constricts the access opening to the bedding storage compartment or cabinet.